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Josh Trank Defends 'Star Wars' Exit

"It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life," the director stated.

After an abrupt exit from the Star Wars universe, Josh Trank is telling his side of the story.

The Chronicle director, hired a year ago to helm the second in a series of planned standalone movies for Lucasfilm and Disney, left the project on May 1.

"I knew that this was going to be questioned and it was going to come under skepticism as to why I left Star Wars," Trank elaborated in a new interview with The Los Angeles Times. "And it was hard. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life."

Although his departure was framed a "personal decision" in an official statement, an alternative narrative emerged shortly after the news broke.

Problems during the shoot for Trank's upcoming reboot of Fantastic Four for Fox and his "erratic" behavior were said to have elicited pause among Lucasfilm executives, The Hollywood Reporter reported on May 1.

Weeks prior to the departure, Trank did not appear at an Anaheim Star Wars Celebration event, tweeting that he had the flu. THR later reported that the director was asked to not attend. Gareth Edwards, the director of the first planned Star Wars spinoff film, unveiled details about the project, titled Rogue One, at the gathering.

In the interview published on Thursday, Trank refuted the characterization that he was fired from the second standalone film, which hasn't officially been given a title or a logline.

"None of those facts were true — and any of the facts that were true were spun in such a maliciously wrong way," the director told the Times, when asked about THR and Variety reports on his exit.